Jeremiahchapter 32
44 verses · KJVJeremiah book hub →
Key verse
Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul.
It stands in scene D of the chapter, verses 36 to 44.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Jerusalem is under siege and Jeremiah is shut in the court of the guard for preaching surrender, when his cousin Hanamel arrives to sell him a field at Anathoth. He weighs out seventeen shekels of silver, seals the deed before witnesses and gives the sealed and open copies to Baruch for an earthen vessel, to last many days: because 'houses and fields and vineyards shall yet again be bought in this land.' Then he prays: 'thou hast made the heavens and the earth by thy great power… there is nothing too hard for thee' (32:17). God answers the prayer with its own question ('is there anything too hard for me?') and promises an everlasting covenant, one heart and one way.
Context
Prophecy · Jeremiah · Jeremiah overview
Where the chapter sits
Jeremiah 32 falls in Book of consolation (chapters 30–33). The New Covenant (31:31–34); the purchase of the field at Anathoth (32); the Branch of righteousness (33). The book's theological centre.
The field at Anathoth. Jeremiah buys a field as a sign during the siege, hope when hope is least visible.
Before it: Against kings, prophets, and priests, chapters 21–29. After it: Jerusalem's fall narrated, chapters 34–45.
The whole shape of Jeremiah→The world behind this chapter
Jeremiah 32The history
The transaction is the message, and it is done by the book. Israelite law gave the nearest relative the first right to buy family land so it stayed in the clan, and Hanamel comes to his cousin Jeremiah with exactly that offer. Anathoth at this moment is behind Babylonian lines. The field is worthless.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
Everything about the sale is recorded because it had to be. Seventeen shekels of silver are weighed out on scales, there were no coins yet in that world, so payment meant weighing metal against stone weights, many of which have been dug up in Jerusalem inscribed with their values.
Then the paperwork. Two documents are made: a sealed copy and an open copy. That is real practice, the deed was written, the sheet rolled, tied with cord, and blobs of clay pressed over the cord and stamped with the parties' seals, with a second unsealed copy for consultation. Thousands of those clay seal blobs survive; the sealed original could only be opened by breaking them, in front of witnesses, if the open copy was ever disputed.
The deeds are given to Baruch and put in an earthenware jar so they will last a long time. Storing documents in sealed pottery is precisely how the Dead Sea Scrolls survived two thousand years in the caves above the same valley.
What it meant to them
The first witnesses had just watched a condemned prophet spend real silver on land held by the enemy, and file the deed for long-term storage. He had been telling them the city would fall. Now he was betting his savings that houses and fields and vineyards would be bought again in this land.
His prayer afterwards is honest about the strangeness of it, he asks God outright why he was told to buy a field while the siege ramps are going up. The answer is the sentence the whole chapter exists for: I am the LORD, the God of all flesh; is anything too hard for me.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- Walton, Matthews and Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
A. Buying a Field at Anathoth While the Siege Mounds Rise
1. (vv. 1-5)
a.in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah: The date is precise, the tenth year of Zedekiah, the eighteenth of Nebuchadrezzar, the siege already closing on Jerusalem while Jeremiah sits confined in the court of the prison for the crime of saying what verses 3 through 5 repeat, that the city will fall and the king will be taken to Babylon. The charge against him is simply that his prophecy was true and unwelcome, Zedekiah shutting up the messenger rather than heeding the message. The chapter's great sign act is about to happen inside this same prison yard, hope transacted at the lowest point of the siege.
Jeremiah 32:1, 1 voiceWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
Jeremiah 32:1
“The siege of Jerusalem began in Zedekiah’s ninth year Jer 39:1, but was temporarily raised upon the approach of an Egyptian army. See Jer. 37; 38.”
Jeremiah 32:2, 2 voices
Jeremiah 32:2
“Then the king of Babylon’s army besieged Jerusalem - The siege had commenced the year before, and continued a year after ending in the fifth month of the following year; consequently, the siege must have lasted about eighteen months and twenty-seven days. See 2Ki 25:18.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 32:2
“He was at that time put into free custody in the court of the prison. At the raising of the siege by Pharaoh-hophra, Jeremiah was on the point of repairing to Benjamin, when he was cast into "the dungeon," but obtained leave to be removed again to the court of the prison (Jer 37:12-21).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 32:3, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:3
“The Prophet here declares, that though he was shut up in prison, the Word of God was not bound, and that he himself was not less loose and free in his confinement than if he rambled through the whole city and visited all the lanes and the streets.”
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed
Jeremiah 32:4, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:4
“And shall speak with him mouth to mouth - He shall be reduced to a state of the most abject servitude. The slave was obliged to fix his eyes on every motion of the master whilst giving his orders, who often condescended to give them only by dumb signs.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 32:5, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:5
“Until I visit him - Perhaps in mercy; it is certain Zedekiah was not put to death, only carried to Babylon, where some think he afterward found favour with the king of Babylon.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2. (vv. 6-10)
a.The word of the Lord came unto me: announces the sign before it happens, Hanameel's visit foretold so that when the cousin arrives asking Jeremiah to exercise the kinsman's right of redemption on a field at Anathoth, the prophet can say then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. The transaction is unremarkable in itself, seventeen shekels weighed out for a field the buyer will likely never farm, the besieging army camped outside the very town where the land lies. The bench reads the ordinariness as the point, an act of commerce performed as an act of faith in territory the Chaldeans already hold.
Jeremiah 32:7, 2 voices
Jeremiah 32:7
“Hanameel was strictly the first-cousin of Jeremiah. In Hebrew all the terms of relationship are used in a more loose way than with us.”
Jeremiah 32:7
“The prohibition to sell these suburban fields (Le 25:34) applied merely to their alienating them from Levites to another tribe; so that this chapter does not contravene that prohibition. Besides, what is here meant is only the purchase of the use of the field till the year of jubilee.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 32:8, 3 voices
Jeremiah 32:8
“This was the word of the Lord - It was by his appointment that I was to make this purchase. The whole was designed as a symbolical act, to show the people that there would be a return from Babylon, that each family should re-enter on its former possessions, and that a man might safely purchase on the certainty of this event.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 32:8
“The Roman historian, FLORUS (2.6), records a similar instance: During the days that Rome was being besieged by Hannibal, the very ground on which he was encamped was put up for sale at Rome, and found a purchaser; implying the calm confidence of the ultimate issue entertained by the Roman people.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 32:8
“It became him to fulfil all righteousness. It was land that lay within the suburbs of a priests' city, and, if he should refuse it, there was danger lest, in these times of disorder, it might be sold to one of another tribe, which was contrary to the law, to prevent which it was convenient for him to buy it.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 32:9, 2 voices
Jeremiah 32:9
“Seventeen shekels of silver - literally, as in the margin, probably a legal formula. Jeremiah bought Hanameel’s life-interest up to the year of Jubilee, and no man’s life was worth much in a siege like that of Jerusalem. As Jeremiah had no children, at his death the land would devolve to the person who would have inherited it had Jeremiah not bought it. He therefore bought what never was and never could have been of the slightest use to him, and gave for it what in the growing urgency of the siege might have been very serviceable to himself.”
Jeremiah 32:9
“4d.., the whole would be under £2, a rather small sum, even taking into account the fact of the Chaldean occupation of the land, and the uncertainty of the time when it might come to Jeremiah or his heirs. Perhaps the "seven shekels," which in the Hebrew (see Margin) are distinguished from the "ten pieces of silver," were shekels of gold [MAURER].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 32:10, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:10
“I subscribed the evidence - We have here all the circumstances of this legal act: 1. An offer is made of the reversion of the ground, till the jubilee, to him who would then of right come into possession. 2. The price is agreed on, and the silver weighed in the balances. 3. A contract or deed of sale is drawn up, to which both parties agreeing, 4. Witnesses are brought forward to see it signed and sealed; for the contract was both subscribed and sealed.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3. (vv. 11-15)
a.according to the law and custom, and that which was open: Jeremiah takes both copies of the deed, the sealed evidence according to the law and custom, and that which was open, and hands them to Baruch before witnesses in the prison court, a purchase documented with more formality than the desperate hour would seem to require. The instruction to put them in an earthen vessel, that they may continue many days looks past the coming destruction to a reader decades removed, the deed preserved precisely because the field will be unreachable for a generation. The stated purpose closes the unit, houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land, the sign act's whole meaning given in one sentence.
Jeremiah 32:11, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:11
“I took - It is probable, that upon such sales among the Jews, two instruments were made, the one sealed up, to be kept by the purchaser, the other open, to be shewed to the Judges, and by them ratified.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Jeremiah 32:12, 2 voices
Jeremiah 32:12
“Baruch--Jeremiah's amanuensis and agent (Jer 36:4, &c.). before all--In sales everything clandestine was avoided; publicity was required. So here, in the court of prison, where Jeremiah was confined, there were soldiers and others, who had free access to him, present (Jer 38:1).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 32:12
“Baruch - This Baruch (chap. xlvi, 4, 26,) was a scribe, and an attendant upon Jeremiah. Witnesses - He made this purchase with all the usual formalities; he signed and sealed it before witnesses, and delivered it to Baruch to keep, in the presence of all the Jews.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Jeremiah 32:15, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:15
“Houses and fields - shall be possessed again - That is, this is an evidence that the captivity shall not last long: houses, etc., shall here be possessed again, either by their present owners or immediate descendants. The young might return; at least, all under ten years of age: there was no natural impossibility that they should not live till they should be fourscore.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
B. Ah, Lord GOD, There Is Nothing Too Hard for Thee
1. (vv. 16-25)
a.I prayed unto the Lord, saying: Jeremiah's prayer opens with the largest possible confession, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power, before narrowing to the history he knows firsthand, the exodus, the land given by oath, and the disobedience that followed it into the very siege now closing around him. The prayer does not hide its own confusion; verse 25 sets God's fresh command to buy the field beside the plain fact that the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans, the prophet naming the tension rather than resolving it himself. Calvin reads the prayer as honest wrestling rather than performed confidence, a man obeying a sign he does not yet fully understand.
Jeremiah 32:16, 2 voices
Jeremiah 32:16
“Jeremiah, not comprehending how God's threat of destroying Judah could be reconciled with God's commanding him to purchase land in it as if in a free country, has recourse to his grand remedy against perplexities, prayer.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 32:16
“Note, Prayer is a salve for every sore. Whatever is a burden to us, we may by prayer cast it upon the Lord and then be easy. In this prayer, or meditation, I.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 32:18, 3 voices
Jeremiah 32:18
“Recompensest - The recompence is placed in the bosom, because, in the East, the garments are so arranged as to form a pocket there. Thus then, men must receive and carry with them God’s requital for their deeds.”
Jeremiah 32:18
“This is taken from the decalogue (Ex 20:5, 6). This is a second consideration to check hasty judgments as to God's ways: Thou art the gracious and righteous Judge of the world.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 32:18
“His reprieves are not pardons, but if in mercy he spares the parents, that they may be led to repentance, yet such a hatred has he to sin, and such a displeasure against sinners, that he recompenses their iniquity into the bosom of their children, and yet does them no wrong; so hateful is the unrighteousness of man, and so jealous of its own honour is the righteousness of God.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 32:22, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:22
“And hast given them this land, which thou didst swear to their fathers to give them,.... Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; so that God was faithful to his word, kept his covenant and oath; and the faithfulness of God is observed and acknowledged by the prophet, along with other perfections of God before taken notice of.”
Jeremiah 32:24, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:24
“Behold the mounts - The huge terraces raised up to plant their engines on, that they might throw darts, stones, etc., into the city. Because of the sword, and of the famine, and of the pestilence - The city was now reduced to extreme necessity; and from the siege continuing nearly a year longer, we may conclude that the besieged made a noble defense.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 32:25, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:25
“Jeremiah knew not how to sing both of mercy and judgment, but God here teaches to sing unto him of both. When we know not how to reconcile one word of God with another we may yet be sure that both are true, both are pure, both shall be made good, and not one iota or tittle of either shall fall to the ground.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
C. Behold, I Am the God of All Flesh
1. (vv. 26-35)
a.Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah, saying: The Lord answers Jeremiah's own question back to him, is there any thing too hard for me?, the field's purchase now set against the city's certain fall by the same power that makes both possible. The indictment names the specific sin repeatedly, the high places of Baal in the valley of the son of Hinnom, sons and daughters passed through the fire unto Molech, an abomination the text states plainly the Lord never commanded nor imagined. The valley named here is the same Hinnom the closing verses of chapter 31 declare consecrated ground, judgment's site becoming the site of holiness in the very next chapter's promise.
Jeremiah 32:26, 2 voices
Jeremiah 32:26
“Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah,.... This is an answer to the prophet's prayer, and particularly to the latter part of it; showing the consistency of the destruction of the city with his purchase of a field, and with God's promise of fields and vineyards being purchased and possessed again; and how each of these would be brought about: saying; as follows:”
Jeremiah 32:26
“The answer is divided into two parts; (a) Jer 32:26-35, the sins of Judah are shown to be the cause of her punishment: (b) Jer 32:36-44, this punishment was not for Judah’s destruction, but for her amendment. Jer 32:28 I will give - Or, I am giving. Jer 32:30 From their youth - God’s mighty deeds for Israel began in Egypt Jer 32:20, and so did Israel’s sin. Jer 32:34, Jer 32:35 These verses are repeated from Jer 7:30-31, but with two important variations. Baal is put for Tophet, and to Molech instead of in the fire.”
Jeremiah 32:27, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:27
“A Truth of God may be sincerely believed by us and yet it may do us good to have it put in the form of a question. As I read the chapter, I called your attention to Jeremiah's confident declaration to God, "There is nothing too hard for You." Yet in our text, which is only a few verses further on in the chapter, the Lord says to this same Prophet, "Is there anything too hard for Me?" I think the explanation of this mystery is that we do not always thoroughly believe even all that we do truly believe.”
Charles Spurgeon· written before 1892· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2675: “Jehovah's Challenge” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
Jeremiah 32:29, 2 voices
Jeremiah 32:29
“With the houses, upon whose roofs - As it is most probable that Baal was the sun, they might have chosen the tops of the houses, which were always flat, with battlements around, to offer incense and sacrifice to him at his rising, and while he was in sight above the horizon.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 32:29
“They burnt incense to Baal, on the houses, so the houses shall be burnt (Jer 19:13). The god of fire was the object of their worship; so fire shall be the instrument of their punishment. to provoke me--indicating the design, not merely the event. They seemed to court God's "anger," and purposely to "provoke" Him.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 32:30, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:30
“For the children of Israel and the children of Judah have only done evil - They have all been transgressors from their earliest history. For the children of Israel - The ten tribes. Have only provoked me to anger with the work of their hands - They have been sinners beyond all others, being excessive idolaters. Their hands have formed the objects of their worship.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 32:31, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:31
“In English Version the words, "that I should remove it," &c., stand independently, as the result of what precedes. The time is ripe for taking vengeance on them (2Ki 23:27). from the day that they built it--Solomon completed the building of the city; and it was he who, first of the Jewish kings, turned to idolatry. It was originally built by the idolatrous Canaanites.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 32:33, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:33
“Though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them - From the frequent reference to this, we may naturally conclude that morning preaching prevailed much in Judea.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 32:34, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:34
“But they set their abominations,.... Their idols, which were abominable to the Lord, and ought to have been so to them: these they placed in the house (which is called by my name), to defile it; in the temple; as by Ahaz, Manasseh, and others: see Jer 7:30.”
Jeremiah 32:35, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:35
“Molech--meaning "king"; the same as Milcom (1Ki 11:33). I commanded . . . not--This cuts off from the superstitious the plea of a good intention. All "will-worship" exposes to God's wrath (Col 2:18, 23).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
D. One Heart and One Way: Fields Bought Again in This Land
1. (vv. 36-41)
a.And now therefore thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: And now therefore turns the oracle from indictment to promise without transition, the same city condemned to famine and sword in verse 36 gathered back from every country in verse 37. The covenant offered is everlasting, one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, obedience given as a gift rather than demanded as a condition, the same inward logic chapter 31 states for the new covenant. Verse 41 closes the promise with an emotional register rare in the book, I will rejoice over them to do them good, the Lord's own gladness named as the ground of the restoration.
Jeremiah 32:36, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:36-44
“God's judgments came gradually upon them, but, they not meeting him by repentance in the way of his judgments, he proceeded in his controversy till all was laid waste, which was in the eleventh year of Zedekiah; now what is here recorded happened in the tenth.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 32:37, 2 voices
Jeremiah 32:37
“Behold, I will gather them out of all countries,.... At the end of the seventy years' captivity; and which will have a greater accomplishment in the latter day, when the Jews shall be converted, and gathered from their present dispersion all over the earth: whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great wrath: or "whither I shall drive them", or "shall have driven them" (m); for as yet they were not thus driven and dispersed.”
Jeremiah 32:37
“Behold, I will gather them out of all countries - A promise often repeated. See Jer 29:14, and the notes on Jer 31:8 (note), etc.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 32:38, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:38
“And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. A comprehensive summary of the covenant of grace, which shall be made known to the Jews at the time of their conversion, and the blessings of it applied to them, and bestowed on them; though now a "loammi", Hos 1:9, is written upon them; see Jer 30:21.”
Jeremiah 32:39, 2 voices
Jeremiah 32:39
“I will give them one heart - And that a clean one. And one way - And that a holy and safe one: and to have this clean heart, and to walk in this good way, will be for the good of them and their children after them. God’s blessing is a profitable inheritance. They shall have but one object of worship, and one way of salvation; and being saved from sin, idolatry, and destruction, they must necessarily be happy within and happy without.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 32:39
THOSE of you who were present last Lord's-Day morning will remember my sermon upon "Mongrel Religion," [Sermon #1622] in which I dealt with those who feared the Lord and served other gods. Their heart was divided and, therefore, they were found faulty. They had, as the Hebrew puts it, a heart and a heart—a heart that went this way and a heart that went the other way. And so, as a matter of fact, they became, as the Prophet says, as "a silly dove that has no heart."
Charles Spurgeon· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1623: “Wholehearted Religion” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) (1881)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
Jeremiah 32:40, 3 voices
Jeremiah 32:40
“And I will make an everlasting covenant with them,.... Which is made known and manifest at conversion; when the grace of it is applied; the blessings of it bestowed; and the promises of it made good; and therefore said to be made; for otherwise the covenant of grace here spoken of was made from all eternity with Christ, and his people in him; as appears from his being set up as the Mediator so early, and from the blessings and promises of it being of such a date.”
Jeremiah 32:40
“I will not turn away from them . . . good-- (Isa 30:21). Jehovah compares Himself to a sedulous preceptor following his pupils everywhere to direct their words, gestures. put my fear in . . . hearts . . . not depart from me--Both the conversion and perseverance of the saints are the work of God alone, by the operation of the Holy Spirit.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 32:40
“I will make - This promise manifestly relates to those Jews that should receive the Lord Jesus Christ, unless it be to be understood of a national conversion of the Jews, not yet effected.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Jeremiah 32:41, 2 voices
Jeremiah 32:41
“WE cannot help looking for the restoration of the scattered Israelites to the land which God has given to them by a covenant of salt—we also look for the time when they shall believe in the Messiah whom they have rejected, and shall rejoice in Jesus of Nazareth whom today they despise. There is great encouragement in prophecy to those who work among the seed of Israel. And it is greatly needed, for of all mission fields it has been commonly represented to be one of the most barren and upon the work the utmost ridicule has been poured.”
Charles Spurgeon· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2036: “The Whole-Heartedness of God in Blessing His People” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) (1888)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
Jeremiah 32:41
“God will certainly do them good because he rejoices over them. They are dear to him; he makes his boast of them, and therefore will not only do them good, but will delight in doing them good. When he punishes them it is with reluctance.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 42-44)
a.Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people: The chapter closes by turning its own opening on its head, like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them, judgment and restoration measured by the same standard. Fields shall be bought again in every district named, Benjamin, the mountains, the valley, the south, the very desolation of verse 43 answered point for point. The seventeen shekels paid for one field at Anathoth become, by the chapter's last verse, a pledge for the whole land's future, a small transaction made to carry the weight of a national promise.
Jeremiah 32:42, 2 voices
Jeremiah 32:42
“Will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised - God’s word cannot fail. The Jews have never yet received the good that God has promised. Nothing like the fulfillment of these promises took place after their return from Babylon; therefore there remaineth yet a rest for these ancient people of God; and it is under the Christian dispensation that they are to have it.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 32:42
“The restoration from Babylon was only a slight foretaste of the grace to be expected by Israel at last through Christ.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 32:43, 1 voice
Jeremiah 32:43-44
“This is mentioned to reconcile Jeremiah to his new purchase. Though he had bought a piece of ground and could not go to see it, yet he must believe that this was the pledge of many a purchase, and those but faint resemblances of the purchased possessions in the heavenly Canaan, reserved for all those who have God's fear in their hearts and do not depart from him.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 32:44, 2 voices
Jeremiah 32:44
“Men shall buy fields for money - This is a reference to the symbolical purchase mentioned at the beginning of the chapter; that may be considered by them as a sure sign of their restoration, not only to the same land, but to their respective inheritances in that land. This the power of God could alone perform.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 32:44
“Referring to the forms of contract (Jer 32:10-12): Benjamin--specified as Anathoth; Jeremiah's place of residence where the field lay (Jer 32:8), was in it.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Jeremiah 32. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 9 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Prophecies of Jeremiah; Charles Spurgeon; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Calvin; John Gill; John Wesley and Matthew Henry.
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